


In Hindsight

by Kyle15



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Stydia, date, nervous!stiles, nervousbutcomeonitslydia!Lydia, stilesisababygiraffe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 12:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyle15/pseuds/Kyle15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has palm cards. Scott is impatient. Lydia is Lydia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Hindsight

The doorbell rang ridiculously loudly through the house. Lydia straightened up from her desk. She’d fallen asleep trying to read The Satryicon, and was thankful for the reprieve she received from the person ringing the doorbell. She was fully aware she didn’t have the time to turn away some bible-banger, especially at this time of night, but welcomed the change anyway. 

She bounced down the hallway, checking herself in the mirror at the end. She hadn’t showered, but at least she wasn’t in her pyjamas yet. She looked presentable. In hindsight, she wished she had put on something a bit hotter than a sweater.

The doorbell rang again in impatience. She rolled her eyes, taking her time on the stairs. The doorbell kept ringing, but whoever it was could wait. Who the hell was trying to talk to her at 9pm anyway? What can’t wait until morning? 

In hindsight, she wished she had sprinted down those stairs.

~~~~~

“Dude, oh my god, would you grow a pair already?”

Scott tapped his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel, staring down Stiles. The poor kid looked like he was caught in the headlights, not sitting in the passenger seat. Stiles gave Scott a panic-stricken look for what must have been the hundredth time that night.

“Dude”, he said, drawing out the word, “what if I fuck up? What if she doesn’t feel the same way? What if she hates me? What if she never wants to talk to me again? What if she moves? It’s Lydia; I don’t doubt she’d move far away to get away from me. What if she punches me? It’s Lydia, she probably has a mean right hook. What if-“ Stiles speeds off before Scott interrupts him. 

“STILES!” Scott yells.

“WHAT?!?” Stiles yells back, his voice cracking.

“SHUT UP!” Silence fills the car. “You. Will. Be. Fine. She told me that she liked you. I have the text right here! Ok? Jesus”, Scott says exasperatedly, rolling his eyes before staring back at Stiles.

Stiles contemplates Scott’s response with an absurd amount of thought.  
“Alright. You’re right. You’re definitely right. Right, right, right. Yes. I can do this. It’s easy. I just walk up to her house and say things. The things. The feelings. Yes. Definitely. Pie. Easy as pie.” Stiles fidgets before reaching into his pocket.

Scott feels like he should be surprised, but really isn’t when Stiles pulls palm cards out of his pocket.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Stiles?” Scott deadpans. Stiles glances at Scott, looking terribly upset, before going back to flipping through the paper in his hands.

This charade had been going on for a couple of months now. It begins with Scott driving Stiles to Lydia’s house in the jeep. Stiles will have disturbingly quiet days, thinking about Lydia and her perfect hair, nose, eyes, lips, face in general. At the same time, about 8:30 he’ll call up Scott. Scott used to be annoyed by the whole thing, but now he’s just tired. Scott would ride his bike over, throw it in the back of the jeep, and they’d drive together to Lydia’s house. They’d sit outside like the stalkers it looked like they were until Stiles chickened out.

It was usually around that point that Stiles’ face would fall. Once it fell, Scott knew it was time to go home. The rest of the ride home would be filled with uncomfortable silence, Stiles resting his head against the window frame, watching cars go by. Scott felt sad for his best friend, he really did. He knew how hard it was to express feelings to someone else. And of all people on the planet, Stiles deserved the very best. Just his awkward lack of self-confidence always got in the road.

In hindsight, Scott should’ve been very happy about what Stiles did next. But as Stiles threw his palm cards on the ground, opened the door and got out of the car like a baby giraffe trying to stand, Scott only felt shocked. He was doing it.

Stiles made his way across the bitumen road towards Lydia’s driveway. His hands couldn’t stop moving, fidgeting and making gestures that probably looked stupid. It helped calm him anyway. He tripped on the gutter as he stepped up onto the pathway, but kept going.

“Fuck you, gutter, I’m telling a girl how I feel and fuck you”, he muttered under his breath. “Fucking gutters, so useless, can’t even tell people their feelings. I can, oh yes yes yes, I am right now, that’s what I’m doing, indeed, yes”.

His babbling managed to make him forget what it was exactly that he was doing. That is, at least until he got to Lydia’s front door.

In hindsight, he thought he should’ve bought flowers. Lydia loves flowers. Or does she? He didn’t really know. What did he really know about this girl? She was smart. She was popular. She was so pretty. Like pretty pretty. She is the type of pretty that everyone is aware of. But Stiles wasn’t superficial. Oh no. Definitely not. No no. No way. He liked her for her personality. But pretty helps. Pretty. Where did that word even come from? What were its roots? Lydia would know, she knows Latin. She can speak Latin. She’s so much smarter than Stiles. Surely. Why is he even bothering? She’s so much better than him in everyway.

This went on for about ten minutes, Scott watching Stiles fight with himself from the car. For someone who was having an internal struggle, Stiles really was an doing absurd amount of flailing.

In his flailing, Stiles hit the doorbell.

“Crap”, he whispered in horror. “Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!”

He looked around for an escape route. There was nothing, just the pathway to Lydia’s door and her driveway. Panic filled him. Maybe he could just tell her he was in the neighbourhood and was saying hi? Maybe he could say he needed help with homework? He didn’t have any homework. She’d be smart enough to figure that out. But –

Suddenly, Scott was beside Stiles and was ringing the doorbell a second and a third time. Stiles’ eyes widened in dread. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” he staged whispered as Scott took off down the driveway. Scott could run a lot faster than Stiles, what with his werewolf powers and the fact that Stiles had legs like chopsticks. 

Fuck. He was trapped. This was the end. This was where he died. Can someone actually die from embarrassment? Stiles was one hundred percent ready to try. He jumped around in a circle, hoping that it would do something, but nothing was happening, and now was the time to die, and please let it end, he could become a monk in his last seconds, girls would be the last thing on his mind, what was behind refrigerators, he never actually found out –

The door opened.

~~~~~

Lydia could hear a commotion outside her door. She peered through the eyehole, but all she could see was a head moving about quickly. She opened the door cautiously to find –

Stiles.

Her throat leaped up into her throat as she stared at the boy. He, for whatever reason, was jumping around in circles. He stopped rather haphazardly and faced Lydia. They both froze and stared wide-eyed at each other. 

“Hi… Stiles,” Lydia said uncertainly, not sure what to do with herself. He was here. At her doorstep. For someone who gave off a persona of not really giving any fucks, Lydia gave a whole lot of fucks about Stiles. But now he was at her door, what she’d been thinking, dreaming, about for a while and she had no idea of what to do. All the flirty, sexy, funny comments she had prepared for this exact moment vanished. Lydia Martin, for the first time in her teenager life, wasn’t ready to face a boy. 

“Well, hi there Lydia, what a surprise to see you here”, Stiles exclaimed in an overly polite way, smiling hard through his panic. 

“Stiles. This is my house”, Lydia stated matter-of-factly. 

Stiles’ mind went into overdrive.

“Right! Yes. Your house. Your home. The place you live”, he reassured himself, his mind scrambling to think of the right thing to say.

“Right!” Lydia replied positively, going along with Stiles’ awkwardness as to avoid properly replying. They stood there in silence for a little while before Stiles manage to speak words again.

“So, uh, I came over, tonight, well you know it’s tonight, tonight is now, I’m here and it’s night time, it’s dark and stuff and I rang your doorbell, well really Scott rang your doorbe-“

“Stiles”, Lydia interrupted. Stiles was both thankful and annoyed at being interrupted for the second time tonight. People were so rude.

“Right. Um, I’ve been doing a lot of thing, like a lot of thinking, like so much thinking, all of today”, Lydia gave a warning glare, Stiles getting the signal, “right, and um, I have something I need to tell you”.

Millions of thoughts rushed through Lydia’s head. In hindsight, based on Stiles’ agitated demeanour and general awkwardness, it should’ve been easy to figure out what he was going to say. But Lydia, being a bit of a pessimist, thought only the worse. He was dying, they’d never see each other again, Scott had told her about her text to him and he didn’t feel the same way, he was actually a lesbian girl and the hair cut was gender-neutral and confusing. She honestly didn’t know.

Stiles, for the first time in his life though, wasn’t panicking. He took a deep breath, all of the words he needed to say falling into place.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you this for years. In fact, this conversation has been so long in the making that I thought that I’d never get around to it. It always felt like a pipedream, something that I could daydream about.” He paused, studying Lydia’s face. She looked hopeful, which he thought was a good sign. His composure wasn’t failing yet, so he steadied himself and started again.

“I think you’re perfect, Lydia. I have thought this every single day since the day I met you. You’re so smart, so beautiful, so unbelievably perfect that I… I can’t sleep. I see you every morning and I stare, it hurt so much that I couldn’t tell you how I felt before now. Scott will back me up when I say that I talk about you all the time. In fact, I think he’s really glad that I’m up here talking to you about it instead of him”, he admitted shyly, scratching the back of his neck.

“My heart hurts every time you smile at me. Every time you step through the door in class and search the room. I hope that you sit next to me, but you often don’t. That’s not the point. What I’m trying to say, Lydia, is that I like you. Like, a lot. So much I’m not even sure what I’m doing. It hurt too much just thinking about what could be. That’s why I’m here. I can’t stand it anymore, Lydia. If I know, then I know. If you say no, then that’s it. I will accept that,” he finishes.

Lydia just stands there, mouth perfect agape. 

“You… you like me?” she mutters flabbergasted. “But… how… what?” emphasising the last word.

“What a strange turn of events”, Stiles smirks shyly in reply. “You’re the one that doesn’t have the words to say”.

Lydia takes a deep breath and centres herself. She’s Lydia Martin. She can fucking talk to Stiles Stilinski, no problem.

“Alright. So what are you going to do about it?” she commands, trying to keep her cool. Stiles smiles adorably, and she nearly loses it, but she’s got control. 

“I’m going to… if you wouldn’t mind, of course, you can totally say no. But like, would you want to go on… like a date, or it doesn’t have to be a date, maybe just a movie together, as best friends, no not as best friends, I mean, like, if you wanted to, but as something mor-… Lydia, do you want to have dinner with me?” he finishes, tilting his head down as he looked up at the beautiful girl in front of him. 

Lydia smiles and giggles, holding onto the doorframe lightly. This adorable, lanky, completely stupid boy was finally asking her out. She’d been dreaming about it for a while too, trying to get Stiles out of her head with meaningless hook-ups. 

“Stiles, I…” she pretends to be thoughtful about it, looking up at the ceiling with a familiar, superior pout on her face, “…will. Pick me up around 8, next Friday?”

Stiles looks taken aback before nodding enthusiastically. 

“Yeah, absolutely, sure, awesome, great, fantastic, right”, Stiles spins off, smiling harder than he has ever before in his life. He’s pretty sure if he doesn’t stop smiling his mouth is going to get stuck that way, but he couldn’t give a rat’s ass because she finally said yes and he’d been waiting for this forever and it couldn’t be any more perfect and sigh.

“Well”, Lydia mutters, “bye, Stiles” smirking a wicked grin at him before closing the door. Stiles puts his hand up to wave bye, and stares longingly as the door closes on her beautiful face. He stands there for a while, seemingly stuck in position before he jerks back to life.

He turns around with an incredulous smile on his face. He can see Scott looking at him from the car. Scott makes a questioning look. All Stiles can do is fist pump before he starts dancing one of his awkward, nonsensical dances. When he nearly hits the doorbell again, he stops and rushes down the drive to Scott. He jumps in and hugs his best friend in celebration, Scott laughing at his friend’s eagerness. In hindsight, Stiles realises he had no reason to be nervous. But he’s happy with how perfect tonight turned out, that he doesn’t really care. 

Scott holds up a palm card that reads “Pretty” over and over again in Stiles’ recognisable scrawl. 

“Really, dude?”

As Lydia closes the door behind her, she leans against it and sinks just a little. Finally. She beams at the ceiling, giggling just a little before launching herself off the door. In hindsight, she shouldn’t have neglected to tell Stiles the way she feels about him. But she was going on a dinner date with Stiles Stilinski, and that was more than enough for her. Fuck hindsight.


End file.
